Seeking Buyers for the Skagit WholeSale Market Thursdays starting June 24th
| “This project is the result of local food stakeholders banding together to re-assemble and re-integrate a food system by returning to an older way of doing business. We’re not re-inventing the wheel, but putting the spokes back together – and re-using it. We are starting small but we need to start something.” Jodie Buller, Skagit Coop |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jodie Buller; Skagit Valley Co-op, (360-336-5087×136), or Lucy Norris; Puget Sound Food Network (PSFN), 360-336-3666
June 8, 2010 [Mount Vernon, WA] – Local food producers are ready to sell their products to wholesale buyers in the covered parking lot of the Skagit Valley Food Co-op on Thursday mornings from 8-10 a.m., starting Thursday, June 24th, and will be there every Thursday through harvest season, interest provided.
This weekly market site will help buyers and sellers reduce the time and fuel costs associated with direct marketing of quality, local food products,” say Lucy Norris, PSFN Project Manager. “The Skagit Valley Co-op and Puget Sound Food Network identified an initial group of local vendors, now we need to energize restaurant and food service buyers, and other food retailers to step up to the plate, so to speak.” Buyers will have some options. They can preorder from a farm, and then pay and collect at the market site, or choose to pick up later. There will be limited invoicing and delivery available. “We’re encouraging producers to provide tasting samples, so we believe impulse buys will be commonplace, too,” says Skagit Food Co-op’s Erin Treat. Weekly “fresh sheets” are available for those who sign up for market email updates.
“The Skagit WholeSale Market is a way for us to help foster face-to-face, triple bottom line business practices,” according to Jodie Buller, Marketing and Outreach Coordinator at the Skagit Food Co-op. A collaboration between the Co-op and Puget Sound Food Network, it is the only grassroots business-to-business market of its kind in Northwest Washington. “The Market will provide a personal way for the many faces of our foodshed to source wholesale volumes from many Skagit Valley producers, in the same place at the same time.”
The Skagit WholeSale Market is grounded in the harvest of all-star Skagit organic producers like Hedlin Farm, Skagit River Ranch, Ralph’s Greenhouse, Skagit Flats, the newly formed Viva Farms, rounded out with staples from Sakuma Bros, Twin Sisters Mushrooms, San Juan Pasta Company, Hidden Meadow Ranch, Fresh Breeze Organic Dairy, Gothberg Farms, as well as seasonal appearances from smaller growers and orchards nearby and east of the mountains.
Those interested in learning more or wish to participate as a Skagit WholeSale Market buyer or seller should contact Erin Treat at skagitcoop@gmail.com. Map and directions to the Skagit Valley Food Co-op are posted at http://www.skagitfoodcoop.com/map.html.